Every so often I have a little brainwave about the dissertation, what it'll look like, how it'll function, stuff like that. I don't really know what it's about yet, other than Moore, Ellis, Gaiman, and how metatextual they are ("Telling Stories About Storytelling"), but I've just been reading some of Ellis' net-based work, which is abundantly available at all times, and I've had an idea. The idea is fairly simple, but it's a good idea, so I feel the need to express it in a public forum.
Form should follow from function, and my function is not just communication, but symbolic action. It shouldn't just say something, but also do something. I'm really not sure what it's going to say, yet, but by looking at what I want it to do, I can put myself one step forward on the path toward actually writing the bloody thing.
So here's the punch line: each section will structurally reflect the subject of that section, which in my case is a particular author and/or the style that author employs. For Ellis and Gaiman, the appropriate structure is pretty self-evident.
Ellis is all about conceptual hyperlinking, lateral connections, and observing society as it exists (for lack of a better term) 'at street level.' Talking about his work should, then, consist of constant cross reference, quotation of his many and various outlets on-line (www.warrenellis.com, The Engine, his MySpace page, the Bad Signal email-outs, and on and on it goes). His thoughts and art become a mass of lateral references. He references himself, cross ways, and he constantly references other things he's seen on-line. His most recent Ministry column (careful, that link will only last so long before it refers to #7, not #6) pauses briefly over the idea of embedding URLs into comics so that the reader can flip to a Wiki entry for background information.
By the exact same logic, the section on Gaiman should employ, not hyperlink, but allusion and quotation. Gaiman, and I say this with love in my heart, is a Shakespeare nut. He wouldn't have written two issues of Sandman based on A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, respectively, if he weren't. His section should reflect a baroque feel, a narratively rich sense of unity in allusion and literary reference. It will, like Sandman all seem to add up to something, even if that something is diffuse, multi-faceted, and in fact doesn't contain just one eventual thesis.
So, whereas Ellis is an intellectual Frankenstein�s monster, Gaiman is a Renaissance man. One is fragmentary, but adds up to a whole that is arguably greater than the sum of its parts; the other is unified, but contains within it a labyrinth of ideas and images, not all of which are directly mutually supporting.
I have no idea what style Moore's section should be in. Perhaps I'll just glue a bunch of hair to the page or staple in some Tarot cards.
Posted by orion at April 6, 2006 2:30 PM